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Rough road to Mideast peace: Bercovici

On Aug. 12, 2013, activists in Tel Aviv protest the Israeli government's plan to free Palestinian prisoners under a deal enabling U.S.-backed peace talks to resume. Palestinians said the talks had been undermined by newly announced plans to expand Israeli settlements. (NIR ELIAS / REUTERS)

By Vivian Bercovici

Tues., Aug. 13, 2013

“In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Palestinian — civilian or soldier — on our lands.”

Imagine the international furor if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had uttered such words.

He didn’t. But PA President Mahmoud Abbas, following a meeting with the newly appointed Egyptian leadership on July 29, mere days after the announcement of the startup of the latest round of talks between the Israelis and Palestinians, had this to say:

“In a final resolution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands.”

And the world was silent.

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No moral indignation about the intolerance, racism, undemocratic nature of it all. If a tree falls in the forest . . .

Well, it seems that the EU, global media and activist communities have very selective hearing, at best.

I wonder. Have they heard about the Egyptian blockade of Gaza, in place since June 30?

Just last week, Palestinian-Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh reported that Ghazi Hamad, a senior official with the Hamas-controlled foreign ministry, had been quoted as saying that the Gaza Strip has been turned into a “big prison as a result of the continued closure of the Rafah border crossing by the Egyptian authorities since June 30.”

And the world is silent.

But word sure got around about the Israeli government’s approval to build settlements in the West Bank, causing a rush of headlines.

Lost in the consternation over Israeli “intransigence” is the fact that as a “confidence-building” gesture to even sitting at the table, the PA demanded the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners, some of whom had committed particularly barbarous murders of Israeli civilians.

It is more than likely that all parties knew about the pending settlement announcement in advance; the Americans certainly did. But the settlement initiative, while highly controversial, gives the Israelis much-needed domestic political capital, which the prisoner release seems to provide to the PA delegation.

Settlements and prisoner releases, in this context, are political distractions.

What he does not acknowledge, though, is that for a two-state solution to work, one must be Jewish and the other Arab. For, in doing so, he would counter a core theme of the Palestinian narrative: that there can be no peace until all Palestinian refugees and their descendants are granted the “right” to return to their pre-’48 homes, even if they fall within present-day Israel.

This isn’t hairsplitting. Without separate Jewish and Arab states — the demographic destruction of Israel — the only Jewish state in the world, is ensured. Furthermore, this interpretation — “two states for two peoples” — reflects the wording and intent of the 1947 UN proposal.

When the Arab nations attacked Israel in 1948 and ensuing decades, they would have been well-advised to have managed expectations and refrained from predicting the imminent and total destruction of Israel each time.

War is brutal. And it has consequences.

As a direct result of the Israeli victory in 1948, more than 800,000 Jews were forced to leave their homes in Arab countries throughout the Middle East, utterly dispossessed. Where is the international clamour to have them repatriated and compensated for expropriated land and property, not to mention suffering?

July 29 was not the first time Abbas has made such disturbing comments. Some choice selections:

December 2010, in Ramallah: “We have frankly said, and will always say: If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it.”

August 2011, in the run-up to the UN vote on Palestinian statehood: “Don’t order us to recognize a Jewish state. We won’t accept it.”

Twenty per cent of Israel’s population (excluding PA territory) is Arab, a population with the same rights accorded any citizen.

Imagine the outcry if Netanyahu said that Israel must be scrubbed of every last Arab.

Vivian Bercovici is a Toronto lawyer and adjunct professor at University of Toronto's Faculty of Law. Her column appears monthly.

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